Many people reading this haven’t had the pleasure of experiencing what I’m about to share. Our overseas visitors most likely have, and I sure have. Being Canadian, I’ve always considered myself an arm’s length away from the US. We’re virtually the same in all aspects of business, life, and entertainment.

But for some reason, the American media, specifically online media, has something against Canada. For the past few years as multimedia has grown and video has become standard practice, I’ve come across many big media sites that reject me like a stuck-up supermodel.

I have a few examples of these sites, which when trying to view a video tell me that I can’t see it because its only available in the US. Frustrating? Very. Especially when I have to sit there through a 30 second or 1 minute pre-roll ad only to be hit with an availability message. I’m good enough for you to charge advertisers for, but not show content to? We’re on the same continent damnit!

For most of the videos I’m trying to view (music videos, news, sports highlights), I can find them on YouTube and whatnot, but I shouldn’t have to. It turns a simple task into a journey for no reason.

I’ve sent a few complaint e-mails in and of course got no response. What harm could come from playing a 30 second recap of last week’s episode to a Canadian? Sure, I don’t fit into the targeted US demographic that your advertisers wish to reach, but who cares? I still have to sit there through their ad anyways.

Some of them try to play the copyright card, yet I can view the same content on cable without any issues if I’m able to watch it at the time of its airing.

Here are the evil networks:

NBC

VH1

MTV

ABC

CBS

If they want to play like that they have no right to sue Dailymotion for hosting TV shows, or fighting against torrent networks that make the content they give away to the US, available to Canada and the rest of the world.

I could use a proxy server or JAP to make them think I’m in America, but I shouldn’t have to.

This has been a public message brought to you in part by the letters g and r. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!

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